


Mimicry

by circ_bamboo



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: F/M, PikeOne_Bingo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-14
Updated: 2010-11-14
Packaged: 2017-10-17 01:48:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/171674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/circ_bamboo/pseuds/circ_bamboo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pike inherits an alien parrot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mimicry

**Author's Note:**

> For the "long-lost heir" square on my [PikeOne bingo card](http://circ-bamboo.livejournal.com/18270.html).

“Incoming message from the captain of the _Yorktown_ , sir,” Yeoman Humboldt said over the intercom.

“I’ll take it in here,” Admiral Christopher Pike said, and the yeoman nodded. The screen went blank for a moment and then flashed the Starfleet logo for another few seconds before resolving into Captain Number One’s face.

“Chris,” she said, smiling. “How are you?”

After nearly fifteen years of partnership, the sight of her face still made him smile broadly. “One. I’m great, just great. You?” Her hair was still mostly dark brown; only a streak of white in the front betrayed the fact that she wasn’t as young as she’d been when they’d served together. He’d, of course, been completely gray years before he’d been promoted to admiral, but he liked to think that she was just as happy to see him, regardless of his age. To be fair, she’d reassured him of such more than once, but seeing her serene face with so few marks of the changing years brought back some insecurity.

“Fine,” she said. “Everything’s been going well recently. The most recent upgrade to the warp core matrix is working out fantastically.”

“Oh yeah? How’s my ship doing, then?” he asked.

“My ship,” she said, a teasing glint in her eyes.

“They’re all my ships now,” he said.

“Point,” she said. “It’s definitely still spaceworthy.” She smiled again. “Related, though: we’ll be back on Earth in five or six weeks.”

“Oh?” Chris said, sitting up a little straighter in his chair. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”

“Funny you should ask,” One said, and her smile turned into something a little more related to a grin. “The _Yorktown_ is now transporting an . . . inheritance of yours.”

“A what now?” Chris asked, startled. Some distant part of his mind was amused that he sounded just like his father.

“Do you remember the Potwaaian ambassador on Thucycon Alpha II?”

“No--wait.” He frowned, tapped in a search on his padd. “Vaguely.”

“Do you remember that zie offered you something?”

“Well, dilithium,” he said.

“No; something more--personal.” She was being deliberately obtuse; her smile was bordering on the shit-eating, however.

“I don’t remember anything other than the dilithium,” he said. “What have you got for me?”

And, with perfect timing, he heard a _squawk_ in the background.

Everything came back in a rush. “Oh,” he said. “ _Oh._ The--parrot thing.”

The ambassador, during the negotiations, had had a large, white bird-like creature that looked most like a Moluccan cockatoo, except it had something more like fur than feathers. It had, according to the ambassador, the intelligence of a five- or six-year-old Potwaaian child--about the same as a Terran of the same age--and vocabulary and mimicking skills about twice as impressive as a Terran African Grey. “I’m sorry the ambassador passed away,” he said, a few moments later.

“We got there just in time for the funeral,” One said. “It was--impressive. A lot of dancing.”

“Interesting,” Chris said. “So I inherited a parrot.”

“It’s not a parrot,” she said. “It’s a Ehkinqotwaa.”

“Ehkinqotwaa!” he heard in the background of the comm feed. “I’m an Ehkinqotwaa!”

“The Universal Translator understands it?” he asked.

“Cait’s teaching it Standard,” she said. “Although I think it’s a ‘she,’ not an ‘it.’ Her name is--”

“Kinqo,” Chris cut in. “I remember now.” He’d remembered thinking how it was like calling a cockatoo ‘Too,’ actually.

“Kinqo! Kinqo!” They both ignored the interruption.

“Zel’s putting together a . . . a care manual, you might call it, for you.”

“I don’t suppose I can politely decline without causing an international incident, can I?” he asked, knowing the answer even before One started shaking her head.

“Sorry, Chris.”

“I’ll survive,” he said, making a show of a huge, heaving sigh.

Kinqo let loose with another random squawk, and they both laughed.

* * *

Five and a half weeks later, Chris stood in one of the SFHQ transporter rooms, waiting for One and her crew to beam down. He was flanked by several other admirals, as well as Phil Boyce, Yeoman Humboldt, and a full complement of various other lower-level officers and enlisted personnel. Captain One and her crew were remarkably popular and in the middle of their third incredibly-successful five-year tour. In other words, _everyone_ wanted a piece of her, and as awesome as it was that she was so successful, he wished that just _once_ in his life he could greet her after a long absence the way he’d always wanted. But no, there were _people_ there, and a lot of them.

Finally, though, the sparkly columns appeared, and One and her senior staff appeared. Commander Caitlin Barry, still chief engineer even though she’d been offered promotion more than once, was carrying a large cage containing, unsurprisingly, Kinqo. Behind her, One’s yeoman staggered under several bags; they weren’t regulation duffel bags, so Chris assumed they contained Ehkinqotwaa-related paraphernalia.

After the official greetings were over, no one dispersed—they weren’t there for the _official_ greetings—and One was immediately monopolized by other people. He thought about interrupting, but Cait came over to him, holding the bird up as high as she could.

“Kinqo, you’re heavy,” she said. “Chris, meet your new Ehkinqotwaa. Kinqo, meet Chris.”

“Hello, Kinqo,” Chris said, squatting, and feeling a little silly about talking to an alien parrot with Admirals Nogura and Barnett and Komack only a few feet away. “I’m Chris.”

He was expecting that Cait had prepared the bird to say, “Hi, Chris!” or something along those lines, but instead, the bird said, “Oh, Chris, right _there_!” in a passable imitation of One’s own voice.

Chris stood, a little too quickly such that his vision blurred momentarily, but when it cleared, Cait’s hazel eyes were wide and her mouth had fallen open. “I swear, Chris, I taught her how to say, ‘Greetings, Admiral Pike,’ not . . . that.”

“Oh, Chris, right _there_!” Kinqo repeated, and flapped her wings.

“Hush, you!” Cait said, and turned. “Yeoman, where’s the cage cover?”

“On your knees, Cadet!” Kinqo said, but this time it was clear that she was imitating Chris himself and not Number One.

As the yeoman ran forward with the bags, Chris realized that the entire room had gone silent and was staring at them. Cait set the cage on the floor and started digging frantically, the yeoman attempting to help. The silence, however, seemed to be some sort of cue for Kinqo, who repeated her magnum opus. “On your knees, Cadet! Oh, Chris, right _there_!”

“Here it is!” Cait said triumphantly, holding up a piece of heavy, brightly-covered cloth for a moment before draping it over the bird’s cage.

From inside, he heard a muffled, “Awww.”

“Good to see you again, Commander,” Chris said, putting on the Command Voice and holding out a hand.

“And you, Admiral,” Cait said, clasping his hand.

Everyone else broke out into forced conversation, a little too loud and rapid for verisimilitude. Another ten minutes of awkwardness passed before he could finally catch up to Number One.

“Captain,” he said.

“Admiral.”

“So, uh, I guess the quarters we had during the negotiations weren’t really as soundproof as the Potwaaians said they were,” Chris said.

“Apparently not,” she said, eyes crinkling with amusement.

“I’ll see you this evening?” he said, knowing she had hours of debriefings ahead of her.

“Of course,” she said, and leaned in, her lips nearly touching his ear. “Maybe we can give Kinqo a better vocabulary.”

“If not,” he said, turning so he could speak into her ear, “it won’t be for lack of trying.”


End file.
